


the bad man

by kuro49, marourin



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-23 04:29:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20886128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49, https://archiveofourown.org/users/marourin/pseuds/marourin
Summary: The one where he is Batboy but everyone else just hears bad boy. And maybe that’s a good distinction made when he is fucking Batman too.





	the bad man

**Author's Note:**

> so i mostly just wanted to write jaybird with a tongue ring going down on matches malone so i build an au out of a mish-mash of picking and choosing from Batman: War Games, Zack Snyder’s offhand comment that Dick is the robin that died in the dceu, and that terrible batman-badman monologue from detective comics #1000.
> 
> all my thanks to my artist who is also the epitome of the cause of probably 95% of my brujay pieces, love you marou <3 and bless Rivkae from discord for the beta! :)

prologue.

Dick Grayson is dead.

He comes home in a casket to be buried six feet below on the grounds of Wayne Estate.

The other body to come home is empty, a husk in dull red, green, and black. On it holds a truth in permanence.

**H A H A H A **. It says.** J O K E ' S O N Y O U B A T M A N **.

Across the chest and over the heart, it is the desecration of a Robin that will never take flight again.

Mr. Malone chews on the end of a matchstick.

He is seated at the end of the bar, with a vantage point that allows him to see the rest of the place even when the neon lights are low and dim when surrounded each and every way with walls painted the same shade as the dark knight of the town. He doesn’t blend in, and perhaps, that is precisely the point he is trying to make when the gold-rimmed glasses tucked into his breast pocket are tinted and his hair is combed back with slick like he’s meticulously groomed it.

In a room full of degenerates, leather jackets and chains for choker necklaces, Matches Malone raises his empty glass to catch the bartender’s eyes in a silent request for another.

He gets an indication to wait while shift changes, and it is a fair request when he has been loitering here for hours on end looking for something no one else is, looking like he is waiting for someone that isn't coming. He turns his head to watch the room again, like he is trying to spot the difference in the people who stay and those that do not.

Finding a pattern where there is an absence of one.

“My friend tells me you wanted another?”

There are no discernible shadows in a room that is composed of them but when he turns back around, Matches Malone feels the darkest one yet falling over his face as he sees the young man standing behind the bar.

All flat and Jersey down to the very lilt of his voice, Matches says: “You’re new.”

The young man has his hair swept back from his face, enough gel in it to make every last strand stay in perfect place. He smiles, and it is syrupy sweet. The flash of teeth, a welcomed tangy bite when he answers. “Not new enough to not know who you are and what you like, Mr. Malone.”

In a leather jacket with the sleeves pushed up over a threadbare tee with a collar that is pulled down too wide and too low, there is enough metallic jewellery in him to have him glinting even beneath such low lights as he moves with well-trained ease behind the bar.

Matches’ eyes follow as he takes his glass tumbler from him, dumps out what’s left of the watered down remnants of the drink before he is picking up a new chunk of ice to carve at. His fingers wrap around the hilt of the knife, every downwards slash going down fast and precise, sending shards of ice flying free. The bartender carves out a sphere of ice and drops it into Matches Malone’s glass before pouring the same bourbon over top of that.

“You might wanna see what’s behind door number three.” Big brown eyes with thick dark lashes to match. He blinks up at him from beneath his lashes like he is playing coy. “They don’t let any of us in there, but you might get lucky.”

Matches lets him lean in close, close enough for him to see the outline of those coloured contacts on him and the smear of black around his eyes. Matches doesn’t snap the matchstick between his teeth in half but it is coming all too close.

He feels like a fuse with the fire just a breath’s distance away.

“And what're you supposed to be?” Matches huffs out, feigning ease he doesn’t feel. “My lucky charm?”

Jason Todd's laugh sounds subdued with the music getting increasingly louder. His laugh sounds of catching Bruce Wayne in a compromising position.

“I can be, _ boss_.”

A flash of silver in that swipe of tongue, makes that mouth on him glisten like a fresh sheen of lip gloss would.

Bruce takes a swig at that. Tastes the sweet sour tang of apple juice instead of bourbon even when Jason made the pour right in front of him. Hears that laugh like it is made just for him.

Gavin King.

A man that falls somewhere between the categories of a nobody and a somebody. The latter perhaps only after he took over what is left of the Hill Gang when Capo Siegel died, or killed, or whatever when the death happened so suddenly.

Gavin King, a man that has gone by Orpheus since.

Jason has read King’s file almost five times over, reads it a few more times after that for good measures until he knows what Batman knows of this man by heart. He is in Bruce's chair in front of the batcomputer, feeling just a bit righteous when he fumes at the lack of music or poetry or even a play on prophecy associated to this particular Orpheus’ reign.

Jason groans to himself, long and loud, slumping in the seat because he has also read through the copies of the GCFD’s arson reports associated to King’s file that make every point at naming the culprit as Firefly.

There is a link here that he doesn’t see. A thread or two or maybe five that he hasn’t figured out when a minor player like King has made himself a person of interest in an arson case that appears cleared and closed by the GCFD nearly three times over.

Down in the Cave with Batman out on patrol, Jason spins around in the chair, and he has to wonder if Richard Grayson would've figured it out already. _ Probably_, Jason reckons.

After all, it's always been Batman and Robin.

The Dark Knight and his Boy Wonder.

Coming face to face with what Bruce allows of his first ward, a glass case in full focus, Jason wonders how fucked up he must be to be jealous of a dead boy.

Dick Grayson is not a cautionary tale. Dick Grayson is a tragedy, through and through. Like those bullets that made it through the Bat-grade Kevlar.

Jason has no intention of becoming either one of those things. But then again, Dick Grayson probably didn't intend for that either.

Behind door number three is door number four.

Behind that and down a staircase creaking with age is a literal a powder keg of well, white powder. On sight alone, Jason can see enough cocaine for the street value of it to be in the counts of several hundred thousand dollars and that is only if the crates they are sitting on top of are completely empty.

“Thought you’re not supposed to be down here.” Matches comments without turning around.

Jason rolls his eyes at the Jersey accent Bruce still doesn't let up. “And I thought Orpheus would’ve given you a bit of a head’s up that this place belongs to the Escabedo Cartel.”

“Just for storage. All this,” Bruce motions as he makes a complete walk through of the room and comes back to the door where Jason stands keeping a lookout, “it’s going to be packaged and gone before the end of the week.”

It’s Thursday.

“So, do it.” Jason says with barely a blink.

Matches turns to him, looks at Jason with narrowing eyes. “And what's it exactly that you think I’m supposed to do?”

Jason throws caution to the wind. Figures he doesn’t need to have a drug addict of a mother or a drug dealer of a father to want to see all of this going up in smoke. But also, he is just pretty sure he’s found the thread, and it's a live fuse.

“All those fires, they were supposed to be discreet, supposed to look like a string of convenient accidents instead of foul play. But Firefly couldn't help it, he made it too obvious. Am I correct, Mr. Malone?” Jason asks, but he knows he is.

A spark at the end of that live fuse. A fire that will burn like the brightest thing.

Matches Malone specializes in insurance fraud and arson. He is also very good at getting underneath Jason's skin and staying there like a decades old tattoo that may fade with time but never really go away.

“Lighten up, old man.” Jason croons, his back hitting the brick wall of the alleyway behind the bar.

If he listens, he thinks he can still hear the music of the terrible live rock band that had finally showed up for their gig tonight. Two more hours until closing, three more until it all goes up in flames.

“You're not supposed to be in the field.” Matches tells him but that is all Bruce down to the very rasp of his voice, pitched low for Jason's benefit. And Jason can tell just by the way the shiver runs straight down to the base of his spine.

“I got tired of waiting in an empty bed for someone that ain’t comin’ back.”

Jason doesn't play fair, not since before he met Bruce Wayne in an alley much like this one.

(Batman is still a _ man, _Jason thinks to himself, a half-hearted prayer twisting with bite and there is just desperation in place of where fear probably should be when faced with the Bat of Gotham while three out of four of his batwheels are replaced by cinder blocks instead. Jason is all bravado, pulling a sharp cutting grin that is meant to be sweet and coy if he’s learned a single thing from all the working girls that have been kind to him.

“I’m not above begging if that’s what’s gonna change your mind, mister.”

It is probably the wrong lesson to learn but Jason has never been subtle, and he isn’t about to start. His invitation a blatant attempt at solicitation. Good thing Bruce isn’t looking for subtle when he just about admits to being anything Batman could want him to be. And turning out to be everything but when he brought him home from the streets.

In retrospect, he didn’t think that far ahead at all. In any case, it works well enough when Jason swings the tire iron in his hands at Batman’s gut while Bruce is still trying to let that terrible attempt of what could have been sink in.)

Nah, Jason doesn’t just play dirty, he plays downright _ filthy_. And he plays this game with an arch of his back, rubbing his half-hard cock still trapped inside of his too tight jeans against Matches. It is a bit of the same strategy from almost five years ago even when the execution is very much different. It still hits Bruce just as hard.

This is no Crime Alley but the Coventry District has its own bad parts of town. So, he keeps going, digging his chipped black painted nails into the ill fitting plaid suit, telling Bruce. “I hate this thing on you.”

The way Jason moves is deliberate with every shift, a little shameless and a lot recklessness holding Bruce’s gaze when the man is still looking like he’s trying to figure out how he is going to punish Jason for brazenly interrupting a case he was deliberately not privy to. He does not let him go there.

“Not like you can send me home now.”

It is the chill that seeps below the collar of his thin shirt, the rough drag of his bitten nails through his hair, the deliberate holes made in his jeans that leaves them ripped in all the right places for all the wrong reasons. It is every one of these things and also the revolting smell of last night’s trash still sitting out in the dumpster barely ten feet from where they stand.

“It’s disgusting here.”

Jason seeks Bruce out for a kiss despite that.

Pressing his mouth to his, but keeping it just chaste enough for it to be a brief one, pulling back to say. “Matches hardly seems like the kind of man to care.”

“Matches isn’t the one getting down on his knees.” Bruce says.

They both glance down at the ground, asphalt wet in patches where the street is uneven.

“So you _ do _care.”

“I do more than that, Jay.”

“Good,” Jason says with a satisfied grin, looking like he’s got everything he wanted and then some more and maybe it is a deliberate slip of tongue for Bruce to call him by his name but Jason takes that as getting through the last of his defense. “So, y’know that’s hardly going to stop me from sucking you off right here and right now.”

Every protest moot, Bruce can recognize a battle lost before it can start, but that’s hardly any skin off his back when it has no bearing on the outcome of this war of his.

Jason goes down on his knees, opens his mouth and sticks his tongue out at him to show off that same silver glint, securing the fact that it isn’t a trick of the lights at all when they were still inside separated by just the bar top.

Bruce looks like he has a few choice things to say but all of that chokes off when Jason flattens his tongue and runs it up the shaft of Bruce's cock on a single broad stroke, long and slow for Bruce to feel the raised rub of Jason’s tongue ring. The stainless silver ball tracing along a vein, pressing right up against every single sensitive inch. Jason is drooling openly, mouth glistening in spit as he finally gives in to wrap his lips around the head of Bruce's cock, the stretch obscene as it prods at his cheek.

His hands reaching out for Bruce’s to bring them to the side of his head, settles them there before he is humming something from his chest for Bruce to get with the program and fuck his throat like he’s been wanting it. He swallows thickly, makes sure Bruce feels the tight hot suction of his mouth as he draws him in deeper.

The groan Matches Malone lets out from between a new matchstick is all Bruce Wayne.

_ —Snap! _

Goes the thin wood as it splinters under the pressure between the clench of Bruce’s jaw and the sharp bite of his teeth while Jason just revels in it.

Fucking the Batman feels a lot like playing with fire.

Fucking Bruce is not any simpler.

His jaw aches something pleasant and it feels as though the back of his throat might be bruised from how hard Bruce had buried the full length of his cock inside of his mouth. Jason swallows all of it when Bruce comes, makes a show of it too. But not before he pulls off, getting up on shaky knees to press an opened mouth kiss to Bruce’s lips, making sure the man gets a good long taste of himself all over the wet slide of Jason’s tongue.

It's a four alarm fire and by the time the GCFD gets it under control, the building might still be standing in the thick fumes of billowing black smoke but the integrity of what remains of the structure is done for. They conclude it as the result of a nasty grease fire that originated in the kitchen, a faulty deep fryer coupled with a timely spark.

Nothing suspicious at hand.

Or so Matches and the new bartender has them convinced. And it’s like door number four never even existed in the first place.

“Before you say anything, tell me this, B. I helped tonight, didn't I?”

They are back in the cave, stripping down from the night, still smelling like the singe of a wild fire in the air. There is soot in their hair and Bruce is peeling off Matches’ moustache while Jason is taking out all the metal in his ears.

“You did.”

Jason glances over, running a hand through the gel in his hair to have the strands coming loose. “Pained you to say that, didn’t it?”

Bruce smiles.

Jason tries again, turning to face Bruce directly, standing his ground on an argument Bruce has never once let him win. “There's absolutely no fair reason why I shouldn’t be out there with you, Bruce.”

Bruce's smile falters, making way for him to say: “I don’t need a fair reason.”

At least Bruce is finally telling the truth.

Jason doesn’t stay mad.

But that doesn’t mean the same thing as giving up. This is an enduring fight that had the two of them on opposite sides since the very start, and when has Jason ever learned that lesson in its entirety? In fact, he does quite the opposite. He still fights tooth and nail, holding on until Bruce addresses it on his own terms.

They are down in the cave when Bruce finds the courage to drag the same fight back up and out into the open again.

Down in the cave where the air is always cooler when Jason feels a shiver crawl across his skin. Like ants marching along a predetermined path. Like the fall of Batman’s shadow under the flickering street lamps. Or, the slow dragging edge of Bruce’s teeth scraping up the line of his spine as Jason buries his face into a pillow, drowning out every last noise coming out from him until all Bruce reads of the pleasure that pins him in place is the way his skin ignites against the press of biting kisses.

“One more time, Jay.”

Bruce doesn’t raise his voice but it carries all the same, nodding to the staff on the far end of the mats, the same one he knocked out from between the grip of Jason's hands. Jason doesn’t let his anticipation fall through from between his grasp when he flashes Bruce a grin before he is jogging over to swipe the staff from the ground.

“You know it.” He says, striding back to rock on the balls of his bare feet as he waits for Bruce to make the motion to have him go again. This is a routine he knows down to the muscle memory of his body, he is just waiting on Bruce’s okay to do it all over again.

It has nothing to do with the cold this time when the hairs on Jason’s arm stand on ends.

It has everything to do with the way Bruce faces him with something near enough to trepidation in his stance.

“One last time.”

Jason's eyes widen.

“Wait, B. Do you mea—” He stops himself, shoving down that burst of hope. He takes an audible deep breath in and then one more out. “One last time.” Jason repeats like he does not believe it, biting down on his bottom lip, fighting down a grin a little. He is shaking, not with exhaustion but with excitement when he tightens his hold on the bo staff, sets himself up opposite to Bruce once more. Jason says it again for good measures, daring Bruce to take back what he has now put on offer. “One last time?”

When Bruce nods, it is his everything, and Jason feels his body _ thrumming _with it.

“Bring it on then, old man.”

This time, it's him that is beckoning at Bruce to come at him, every line of his body going loose, every bit cocky in the way he eyes Bruce.

When Bruce strikes, Jason strikes right back without hesitation.

He doesn't just teach him how to hit, he also teaches him how to take a hit.

It is like the time a too young Jason thought _ why not _and took the hardest fucking swing into Batman’s midsection with a tire iron. And then saying the same thing when Batman asks him to come home with him.

When Jason puts Bruce flat on his back, he brings one end of the staff right down by Bruce's ear.

The impacting thump might be dull but it echoes and it drags them both back to the near palpable buzz that is rushing just below the skin. Electrifying. There is sweat dripping down the line of Jason’s spine, droplets falling from his temple as he catches his breath. Jason's mouth parts on a heavy exhale, his heart still racing, swipes his tongue across his chapped lips, flashing silver beneath the spotlights flooding the training mats installed high above the cave walls.

"Didn't I tell you to take it out?"

Jason's eyes narrow at Bruce's question, the man not making a single move to get up from where he is still on the ground.

"You don't like it?" Jason asks, doing it again. This time slower, calculated in the deliberate drag of his tongue with its silver stub in the center grazing just over his teeth as he leaves his bottom lip all shiny and red.

"Not when I could've accidentally hurt you."

"You couldn't." Jason tells him, his hair curling with his perspiration as he vehemently shakes his head. And it's like a constant hamster wheel they are running through when it comes to this. "You wouldn't."

"Didn't I already?" Bruce keeps going, like every sin is his to bear and Jason tries his hardest not to roll his eyes right at him. This has nothing to do with Jason not hearing his reminder to take out the tongue piercing and everything to do with realizing the full weight of Bruce's own decision to let him out on the field with his blessings.

Jason's body aches in places where Bruce's fist came in full contact, the same places that will bloom the ugliest shades of purple and green beneath his clothes. Jason shivers because he fucking wants all of this even if it would probably kill Bruce to learn the truth.

"Shut up about that, B." Bruce surprisingly does, stops staring up at Jason like he's sentenced him to a life of death with every step. Because it's like the man has forgotten the kind of life Jason lived before he ever thought to rob Batman. Jason keeps going because he's won and these are all his winnings to take. "You're so fucking stupid, y'know."

And like with everything, he takes all of it.

Jason ducks his head down close, his mouth grazing at Bruce's before he presses forward with finality. He is leading and he is leading a slow one, his eyes sliding close to kiss the man without that constant edge of guiltbad_terrible_ lining every reaction Bruce wants to immediately jump to when he is coming face to face with who should've been rightfully a second son.

Bruce has a forgone conclusion that he is a bad man with a worse track record.

Jason parts his mouth on a sigh, slipping his tongue against Bruce's, sliding the metal ball over the soft palate of Bruce's mouth, and draws back on a low moan at the burst of pleasure that sparks for him. Jason wants to show Bruce that it doesn't always have to be a fight. And even when it is one, they don't always have to come out worse for wear. He pulls back a breath's distance apart, eyes opening but only half-lidded, Jason spells it out for Bruce.

"I wouldn't let you."

“If I let you do this.”

Jason places the staff down on the ground parallel to them and tips his head down to look at Bruce from beneath his lashes. He holds still on top of Bruce on a precipice. Waits until the man finally takes the hint and puts his hands on his waist like Jason has been wanting since the start, curves his fingers around him as he settles down on a straddle over Bruce.

“Like that was ever in doubt but keep going, B.” Jason is shaking his head, his mouth twisting into the most laughable thing because when has Bruce let anyone do anything and when has _ he _ever let Bruce's say so affect a thing he ever does for himself.

“If I let you do this, Jason, I need to know you will listen to me in the field.”

Jason leans forward, makes Bruce’s grip around his waist take his weight until he is the only thing holding him up, forcing Bruce’s grasp of him to go bruising. “If it helps you sleep at night, I can cross my heart and hope to d—”

“_Jay_.”

He has a lot to prove but Bruce has just as much to lose when the Robin suit enshrined still holds every memory of Joker’s last taunt. Jason looks at him, gaze going heavy with intent as he assesses him. Finally relenting to put his palms down over Bruce’s chest to take back a majority of his own weight, feeling the rough drag of callouses over Bruce’s hands as he moves them upwards against his sides.

Jason sighs with the heat of him and smiles to say. “How about we settle for something a little more tangible then?”

He lets him place a subcutaneous tracker in him.

Oh. _ Oh_, it is a curious thing.

To wear a dead boy’s clothes. It stretches, obscene. It shows, skin.

He is nineteen, nearing twenty, not nine years old with a craving for bruised knuckles and split lips and scraped knees, and least of all, justice in an unfair world. He has his own vengeance, yes. But he knows better than to come clean quite so easily.

“No.” He tells Bruce. And watches as the man breathes out in relief.

Like he said, he is not his son. And he doesn’t want to be.

Jason Todd isn't Robin.

He figures Batboy might work well enough when he dons on all that black. And if Bruce Wayne ever gathers the courage to ask why at all, Jason knows his answer: “So they’d know I’m yours.”

In between the narrow shops and restaurants compacted within a two block radius, the Lucky Hand Triad dominates China Town.

Jason is in his favorite leather jacket, one hand shoved deep inside a pocket while the other holds on to a cigarette burnt down to a near stub. Torn jeans frayed at the knees, and just enough exhaustion in and around his eyes to have him fit into the foreign population that comes in and out of this part of town, Jason drags in a lung full of nicotine.

He passes by storefronts overflowing with burlap sacks full of dried fruits and medicinal herbs, walls lined with shelves packed with boxes of oils in glass jars and creams in plastic containers citing remedies for every possible condition out there and then some. The smell of it all coils into a single pungent stench that permeates through the air of the narrow shop, wafting into the busy sidewalk that always seems to be wet even on a sunny day.

This is where Jason finishes his cigarette, watches men of the Lucky Hand Triad come and go, their hands showing empty when they enter to exit with green tucked into their pockets.

Jason doesn’t follow, doesn’t even glance after them with a well timed turn of his head as he grinds the cigarette butt into the ground. He knows their routine at this point, and he better when he’s been cultivating this habit for a good week now. It is almost expected that he ducks into the small corner noodle restaurant right next door.

Has the owners greeting him with enthusiasm when he orders his usual of a large noodle with extra wontons. The same shop that the Lucky Hand Triad skips over on their route.

Bruce is working at the batcomputer when Jason gets back. The screens he is facing has all the right files pulled up when Jason jumps right into the crux of it without even a hello.

“You already earned King's trust with the Escabedo Cartel. We can't follow through with the Lucky Hand Triad.”

“We?” Bruce asks, making a half-turn in his chair to face Jason.

“You weren't the one that ate wonton soups for a week straight to confirm what’s being held at the location King gave us.”

“Us?” Bruce asks, watching the roll of Jason’s eyes at his emphasis on all the wrong things here.

“Yes, we and us. Don't be a baby and learn to share. This is _ our _case now.” Jason isn’t shy about it, willing to go through with fighting for the spot beside Bruce all over again if it means he gets to be there every night. And Bruce knows he isn’t fair about it but he doesn’t think he should be when he brought the boy home to be a son and wound up with the kid in his bed and kissing his way up to his open mouth.

Bruce loves him, even if he will never say it in these exact words.

“You don't think that would raise some eyebrows?” Bruce keeps going with the case because _ this_, at least, he knows.

“Have a little faith, B. Nobody asks any questions unless you look like you stepped out of a bad porno from the 80’s in your plaid suit and your moustache, Mr. Malone.” Jason says with a grin, stepping close. “Also, I play a hungry growing boy with sheer authenticity.”

Bruce's mouth presses into a thin flat line at that description but he pushes himself to keep asking the questions to get at the answer that drives them to their next move. “Why not the Lucky Hand Triad?”

“Because Orpheus wants all of their products to go, but the Triad’s got these mom and pop stores who can't pay protection fees holding it for them before transit. And most of these people's homes are right upstairs from their shops.” He's seen the money exchange hands, and the difficult expressions on the faces of these older men and women when they can't pay up. Barely a week of their hospitality and Jason feels like he is ready to make any arguments if Bruce doesn’t agree. “You can't set any of it on fire without turning everything else into ashes.”

Jason is quick, catching on to the slight quirk of Bruce’s mouth into what he can almost consider to be a grin. In his next breath, Jason is already stating the truth for neither one of their benefits.

“...But you already knew that.”

“I did.” Bruce replies, tugging him closer to stand between the spread of his thighs. He doesn’t need to look at where he personally made the cut into Jason’s skin to insert the tracker inside of him for Jason to draw the correct conclusion, not when the small incision is still fresh and pink. Bruce only remembers to take the sting out of things because he never meant for it to be understood as misplaced trust. His paranoia comes from a place of fear. “But that's still very good work, Jay.”

Jason glances away, flushing from beneath his skin at the praise.

“Well, old man.” He says in answer, pink at the cheeks and starting to go red at the ears. “I'd learned from the best after all.”

If Bruce Wayne is the son of Gotham, then Jason Todd must be her illegitimate heir. Born of her gutters to be raised by her streets. Jason has to wonder why Bruce doesn’t let Gotham’s families destroy themselves.

He’s got his hands tangled into Bruce’s sheets and Bruce all tangled up inside of him when he asks.

“Because we both know there are always going to be enough bad people in this city.” Bruce answers, his voice low and hoarse as he sinks into Jason again. Bruce continues, his grunt soft but punctuated by the way Jason squeezes down around him like a vice, wet and hot and making the lewdest noises as he watches the full size of himself disappear inside of a body that is displayed on all fours underneath his. “If we let them take each other out, then there’s going to be a vacuum in the Gotham underground.”

Jason groans, his eyes batting at the stars he can't shake off, the thick dark lashes fluttering shut as Bruce bottoms out once more.

“A gaping empty hole like that?” Bruce rumbles, the long line of Jason’s spine stretching out beneath his hands. He finds a good grip at his hips, fingers curling into the give of flesh, pulling out until there is just the head of his cock still inside of Jason. “That’s just asking for something even worse to fill it all the way up.”

Jason has his head turned to the side, his mouth parting on a gasp that breaks down into a long, low groan when Bruce pushes back inside of him. He tells him _ more_, and it comes out wetly from between his lips, almost on a sob. And Bruce is pretty sure Jason isn’t asking for more of an explanation on the necessary evil of keeping the underbelly of Gotham in balance when Jay is rocking his hips back on each thrust to have Bruce slamming down on his prostate every time.

He is moving, turning his face back into the pillows so he can shout into them when he comes, Bruce’s hands soothing down his spine as his entire body shakes from the force of his orgasm alone.

“If I was Orpheus, I wouldn’t have anyone else do my own dirty work. I would cut the head off at the neck, cripple every family all at once so there’s no chance for anyone to get the time to form alliances. The smart thing to do would be to take out each of their second in command all in one night.”

Jason is blinking up at the ceiling, lying stretched out on Bruce’s bed with every single one of his limbs loose and very thoroughly fucked out. Bruce has a warm washcloth in his hand, wiping him down, and he doesn’t even bat an eye at the continuation of their conversation.

“A monopoly on a market like this is something Gotham might not survive.”

“Maybe it’s better to raze it down to the foundation and build it up from scratch all over again.” Jason tells him, spreading his legs easily for Bruce on a simple nudge as he cleans up the inside of his thighs.

“Maybe,” Bruce murmurs in answer, more focused on the task at hand. “But are you sure you don’t want a shower to clean yourself out?”

Jason blinks, shoving himself up on an elbow to smirk at Bruce.

“Nah, I want to feel you inside me all night.”

Bruce wants to believe he has more self-control than this but he doesn’t, not really, not when this is all it takes to have him pushing Jason back down on the flat of his back while Bruce gets between those thighs of his again. This time, he intends to mark him up for good, inside and out.

And with the way Jason’s eyes gleam from beneath his lashes, Bruce thinks he wants that too. Badly, just like Bruce.

“You know, Jay.” He starts, lying down in the dark with Jason curled up beside him. “I don’t need you to be capable.”

And he almost thinks Jason has fallen asleep with the long silence to fill up before he finally answers. “Then why do you need me at all, old man?”

Here is his mistake with Dick. It isn’t supposed to be about Batman and Robin first and foremost. It was always supposed to be Bruce and Dick. He’s paid for his mistakes by ten folds and then some. He refuses to go down the same road and make the same mistakes here. With Jason, with the kid that has become something else entirely.

“You figured it out since the start.”

“Tell me again.” Jason whispers.

“I care.”

And just when Bruce is on the brink of sleep, Jason shifts, uncurling to stretch out along his side. Leaning up to press his mouth to the line of Bruce's jaw to say: “I know, B.”

Bruce doesn't see the smile in the dark, he feels the way it curls across Jason's lips.

Maybe Orpheus is getting just as impatient.

Because when Matches Malone calls, citing an unforeseeable complication with the deadline to ground the Lucky Hand Traid's heroin production coming close, Orpheus comes like a fish reeled in with a hook on the line.

The meeting happens but the real Matches Malone doesn't meet the real Gavin King.

And there are several reasons for that. Four to be precise.

  1. The real Gavin King is dead, has been for a while.
  2. The real Matches Malone is dead too, also for quite some time now.
  3. In Gavin King’s place stands a man that is distinctly not Gavin King. But the face is still a familiar one when it is encased in black leather burned into skin.
  4. And well, Matches Malone isn’t even the first false Matches Malone to step into the same disguise.

“I might not work for the big leagues but even I know you ain’t Gavin King.” It's the perfect New Jersey accent again, flat and nasally to boot. He is in that distinct plaid jacket and standing at just the right height. “So, when did the False Face Society started working for Orpheus?”

“We both know it’s precisely the exact opposite but that means we can skip the introductions then.” Black Mask’s laugh is a chilling thing but Jason guesses that's kind of the point. “Even better, Mr. Malone.”

“I don't work for the big leagues enough to have you know my name quite that well, Mr. Sionis.”

The night is young.

And so is he when they are meeting at the warehouse down by the Gotham docks. Jason fills the god awful plaid suit almost too well when his stance fits too, a wooden matchstick peeking out from the line of his lips pulled thin on a slight frown. He hardly needs to be seeing Roman Sionis standing in Gavin King’s place to put two and two together to get an answer that actually makes a lot of sense.

Orpheus was always too much of a newcomer to Gotham City to attempt to take hold of this much ground this quickly and have both the money and the goons to be able to uphold the control necessary to keep this whole operation from folding in on itself.

But Black Mask, well, he does without a doubt. With his False Facers as the enforcers when the time comes, it is about gaining control without anyone else being the wiser until he decides to show off his last hidden hand in a detrimental move that will probably render the rest of the Gotham underground to cave within his control. All the while, still having Orpheus as a patsy as needed.

“I like you, Matches. You mind if I call you that?” Roman drawls out, keeps going like he didn’t just ask a question. But all of it is a bit rhetorical when he knows the man he has hired is putting all of it together. “You’ve got guts. Guts that might start spilling if you don’t tell me what's the problem with burning down half of Chinatown with the kind of money that I’m paying you.”

“The problem's that I might be a nobody at the end of the day but at least that also means, nobody can pay me enough to deal with this.” Matches tells him with a shake of his head, taking a step back, waiting on the cue like a man stuck between a rock and a hard place to settle for the option where he doesn’t come out in a six by eight jail cell. He figures a businessman like Roman Sionis can understand throwing one deal out for another where he doesn’t lose as badly.

Roman scowls deeply, or Jason assumes that is what it is when he can’t really see anything underneath the black gimp mask.

“And what is _ this _supposed to b—” Because the plan doesn’t change, never really did nobody who showed up to this prearranged meeting.

Dropping down from the rafters above, Batman says in mock greeting: “Nice night, Black Mask.”

It blows up, not in their face, but still quite literally.

When Black Mask makes his narrow escape from the big bad Bat of Gotham, he brings down a good portion of his warehouse by the docks to do it. Abandons enough of his men to get away when he presses down on the remote detonator. Has the place coming down and gets a batarang embedding deep into the muscle of his shoulders for his efforts.

“Come on, Batman!”

It’s a familiar voice, shouted over the chaos of a warehouse by the docks on fire. Bruce turns around at the rumbling of an engine as he is dragging the last False Facer out of the blast radius and the raining debris of crumbling bricks, scorched metal beams and melting corrugated steel sheets. He turns around and blinks behind the cowl because he expects the sight of the gorgeous motorcycle sitting between the spread of Jason’s thighs.

What Bruce doesn’t expect is the first look at Jason in his vigilante costume.

He is in all black, the new suit fitting him in leather and Kevlar made of sharp clean lines, cutting a shadow much narrower than Batman’s own. In place of a full cowl to hide his identity, Jason has a black domino mask on. One that wraps around to extend upwards just behind his ears. Pointed on each side in true Bat fashion, Bruce recognizes the ear-like extension as part of the set of goggles he’d seen Jason tinkering with in the cave, only it is now simply flipped upwards to sit atop the crown of his head. There is no cape but it suits him when he twists in his seat to grin at Bruce just as he climbs on behind him to show off the bright red bat insignia across his chest in imitation of Bruce’s own.

“When did you get all of this?” He asks and he knows with the speed Jason will go as they peel out of the docks and into downtown Gotham traffic, this might as well be the last of what should probably be a very stern dressing down. Because the plan doesn’t include Jason coming back for him.

The lenses of his mask leaves his eyes hidden, all milky-white and blank, but Bruce knows the bright blue-green by heart and the way they glint when Jason is given half the chance to do things his way.

“I’ll tell you all my secrets when we get home, old man.”

Jason’s laughter is loud and muffled, reaching behind to drag one of Batman’s arms around his waist as they take off into the early Gotham morning just before dawn comes up with the flames.

epilogue.

Permanence is admitting what they have isn't a fluke. Permanence is staying through the night even when their account of night and day is probably a little bit skewed by a lot.

He isn't just another orphan boy to be plucked from the street, and he isn't another billionaire with taste in the less fortunate. There are so many other ways for the two of them to find each other but he swings a tire iron right into his gut only to hit him right in the heart like a particularly violent cupid with terrible aim.

“Hey B, if you’re thinking something a little more permanent than just a tracker in my arm, I might even consider your batbrand on me.” Jason grins, glancing up at him from beneath his lashes as he sees Bruce’s eyes trailing across the arm he has thrown over Bruce’s chest as he is lying there in his bed, naked and sprawled halfway on top of Bruce.

Jason has a lot of things to say about the brutality Bruce is capable of. He has been in the shadows enough times to see the burn of Batman's brand across the skin of the truly vile things they fight each and every night. He has seen the quick release, the bright red metal and the scorch of flesh, and he has to wonder how fucked up he is over Bruce that this is what makes him painfully hard.

Bruce brings Jason's wrist to his mouth, presses a chaste kiss to the inside of it before murmuring. “I know you’re joking.”

“But...?” Jason asks, almost hesitant when Bruce is so gentle with him.

“There’s no but.”

Jason’s eyes widen while Bruce’s cheeks tinge red.

He sits still beneath the needle, chest pressed against the back and straddling the chair as it stays reclined to allow the tattoo artist to work easily.

"Take it you're a groupie, or you rather call yourselves cape-chasers these days?"

"Is that what they call it?" Jason almost doesn't register the pricking pain at all when his attention is drawn single-handedly to this conversation alone. He doesn't say _ no _ because he really is just supposed to come off as one. But the word cape-chaser has him grinning like an idiot because this is so much better than what he could've come up with himself.

The tattoo artist chuckles, wiping down the excess ink over the first line made. "Do you prefer bat bunny then? 'cause I've heard people come in callin' themselves that too."

Jason nearly ruins the entire fucking thing when he gives a full-body jolt at that.

It's a damn good thing he chose the solid black design instead of just an outline because his tattoo artist definitely does not approve at the shake of his shoulders as he laughs, the needle pulling away from his skin as the laughter runs down the line of his spine in full force. He's got tears pricking at the corner of his eyes and he's pretty sure he should leave the artist a very generous tip even as he stumbles over an apology still in the midst of his laughter.

When he finally settles back down on the chair, his skin is buzzing and it isn't just the symbol of the Bat in the guise of gaudy tramp stamp being tattooed over his lower back.

"Gotta support your local capes, y'know." Jason's grin borderlines on manic at this discovery and he hides it in the crook of an elbow as he mumbles in answer, his cheeks flaming red. "So yeah, I think I'd prefer bat bunny."

It's Thursday night the week after, and they are getting ready for patrol when Bruce sees it: Gauze where Jason shouldn't be injured, the flimsy white mesh peeking out from the top of those jeans he has on.

"You're hurt." Bruce points out, catching Jason by the wrist and turning him bodily around so they come face to face.

It gets Jason making a noise of confusion when Bruce is holding him a little tighter than necessary.

"What are you talking ab—" Bruce deliberately lowers his eyes, gaze slow and stern and telling him to cut the bullshit because he saw what he saw. The furrow between Jason's brows is almost cute but Bruce's brain is working a mile a minute and he can't figure out when and how Jason could've gotten hurt on his watch and he didn't know. Jason is reaching back, touching a hand to his lower back where his t-shirt rode up, and feeling the gauze stick out from the waistband of his jeans. "—oh_, _ you mean _ that_."

Bruce is standing still but the way Jason drops off with that last word has him feeling like he is staggering. He wants to be upset, but the start of a barely bitten back grin showing across Jason's lips has him holding still and waiting.

"Promise you won't get mad, B."

"Jay." Jason is glancing up at him, that grin going almost nervous now, and Bruce has no idea what is happening. "You don't lie to me about getting hurt."

"Uh," Jason's eyes widen at that, almost in confusion, like he didn't consider Bruce's head would go straight to that. "I wanted it."

"You wanted to get hurt." Bruce feels a low grade headache coming on.

"Not the way you're thinking."

"Tell me how I should think." Bruce says, on edge and hating the way his chest feels heavy, a vice grip around his heart and holding.

"You weren't supposed to see it until it heals."

"Jason."

"Fine." Jason shakes him off, and Bruce lets go because Jason is almost never this cooperative if he really intends to hide something from him. "You just ruined your own surprise but of course that's my fau—"

"_Jason_."

"Okay, sit down before you give yourself a heart attack, old man."

Jason bodily puts him into the large leather chair in front of the batcomputer, then turns around so his back is facing Bruce.

Bruce watches from his seat, stares really with all of his focus and hopes Jason understands the severity of all of this. He still has no idea what to expect but at least he can breathe again when he sees the line of hesitation in the pull of Jason's shoulders before all of that goes loose with a soft little _ fuck it_. Jason is reaching back with one hand, hooking a thumb into the waistband of his jeans and tugging them halfway down the swell of his ass. The gauze is thin, and Bruce can make out a vague shape before Jason's fingers are peeling back the medical tape keeping it in place to reveal bare skin.

And then Bruce sees it.

But it's a little hard to believe.

The silence behind him gets Jason nervous again, his laugh catching in his throat as he tips his head back to find Bruce simply staring, barely blinking, without any discernible expression over his face. And if the world gave out degrees for reading a man like Bruce Wayne, Jason would have a doctorate in it. But even he has no idea what is going on this time around.

"You don't think it works with the whole bad boy image?" Jason tries instead, swallowing because he isn't quite so sure what he was expecting but this is definitely not it.

"What bad boy image?" Bruce asks, echoing him in reflex.

"Batboy." Jason tells him, not bothering with sticking the gauze back over his lower back now that this particular secret is out of the bag. He turns back around, facing Bruce again, stepping back into Bruce's space like it's his own. "But everyone just hears bad boy, I mean they aren't necessarily wrong since I'm fucking Batman too. But y'know my whole brand is built on that. With the leather jacket, the motorcycle, the tongue ring, the ear piercings, the hair gel, and now the tattoo too. Want me to keep going?"

Bruce isn't sure he hears any of the words coming out of Jason's mouth but he thinks he is finally finding some purchase in a situation with none. Jason is waiting for an answer and Bruce is pretty sure he doesn't have a good one. So he settles for stating the truth.

"It would've hurt more with the brand."

Jason laughs, nodding once with his grin back in full, and it's filthy.

They don't go on patrol that night. They also don't go to bed.

Bruce turns Jason around again and has him bracing himself against the edge of the desk. The jeans are pushed off of his hips to fall to his ankles and he steps out of them to widen his stance, not bothering to reach back to spread himself when he can already feel the heat of Bruce pressing up against him.

When Bruce nudges the head of his erection against his hole, Jason easily pushes himself back on the full length of his cock. He fucks himself down on it while Bruce's hands drag a pleasant trail up the length of his spine, shoves his loose tee all the way to Jason's shoulder blades before he is running his palm down to where the tattoo is.

The entirety of Bruce's focus is on the black curve of the Bat symbol stretching across the skin of Jason's lower back, and Jason's whole body burns with that knowledge.

He drops his head between his shoulders as he rocks himself back, each ragged breath coming out wet and desperate as he is clenching down on Bruce who is buried to the hilt inside of him. Jason wants to tell Bruce how good it feels but he doesn't have any of the words for it. Soft little sighs falling from the part of his mouth and his knees go weak when Bruce is reaching out and grabbing a handful of his hair to drag his head back, craning his neck to bare his throat, has Jason's whole spine curving until he is just one taut line for Bruce to fuck into.

The batcomputer is left on, screen after screen running diagnostics of concurrent cases they are investigating but all of that runs like a passing train when Jason's head is a one track mind. He loves swinging through the Gotham cityscape but not as much as being right here with Bruce.

When Bruce takes a seat back into the leather chair, Jason follows. He chases the heat and only settles when Bruce's hands find his waist and take a firm hold of him. He is not small by any measures but he definitely feels like it when Bruce is working him up and down over his cock, taking most of his full weight as he does. He goes where Bruce puts him and when Bruce touches a palm between his shoulder blades, Jason is leaning forward so Bruce can see the slide of his erection inside of Jason's hole while his own bat symbol is on full display, outlined in red where the skin is still tender.

Street kid, lowlife, gutter trash, you name it, and Jason knows he's been called things that are much worse. Jason has his eyes squeezed shut, breathing heavily and on a loud sob when Bruce keeps hitting that same spot inside of him, gets him seeing stars bursting in the dark. He grabs blindly at Bruce's hand wrapped around his waist, clings to the man's wrist until Bruce is turning his palms to lace their fingers together and it's like none of his past matters at all.

He is not what anyone wants to call him. He is Jason, he is his own person. He is Batman's boy only of his choosing.

Vice grip, knuckles white. His bare toes curling as they scrape against the ground uselessly, flushing pink all the way down to his chest beneath the thin tee that's damp with sweat. He tips back until he is resting the crown of his head against Bruce's shoulder, makes the man wrap his other arm around him just to steady him.

"So," Jason starts, blinking his eyes open to ask, "I take it you like it?"

It has Jason smiling a smile that is crooked when Bruce turns his head, kisses the corner of Jason's mouth, and tracks a trail of them along the line of Jason's jaw before finally biting down on a spot that makes Jason melt.

"I love it," Bruce tells him, and there is that word, his answer warping on a grunt when Jason is grinding into his lap until they are both a bit of a breathless mess.

Permanence is a grounding, settling thing. Permanence is doing something reckless and having it hold this much meaning.

**Author's Note:**

> [click here for extra versions of marourin's art on twitter, featuring: jay's smitten face and bruce's yaoi hands ;) ](https://twitter.com/Marourin/status/1180998764003151873)


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